There is no choice: improving school education is the key

THE wonder of the school presentation ceremony season and the anxiety over high school results sit awkwardly this week, coming days after reports of slipping Australian education standards.

This time of year is about winners versus losers in the awards stakes, about joy versus disappointment over one final mark that's supposed to open doors to career success.

The celebration of success is fine indeed, as it sets standards to which students and schools can aspire. But not everyone gets the trophy or the certificate. Most students never do.

This anomaly is easily dismissed with the throwaway that ''life's tough, not everyone can win''. The problem is, Australia tends to measure educational success in terms of winning rather than improving - and if more of our students don't perform better, our global competitiveness will worsen.

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This year Australia fell behind Singapore, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Korea and the US on crucial international surveys. Australian year 4 students have been significantly outperformed by students in 21 countries in reading, 17 countries in mathematics and 18 in science. At year 8, Australia was far behind six countries in mathematics and nine in science.

The main reason for the weakness is that while our high achievers perform comparatively well nationally and globally, too many students never reach their personal best.

The challenge for every parent and educator who sits through a school ceremony this week is to ask, ''How well did the non-award students perform?''

And in this year of the Gonski reform proposals, the challenge for parents of HSC students is, ''Has every child in my child's class reached their potential?''

If the answers to these questions are that it doesn't matter or that it's not my problem, think again.

First think about the word productivity. It is used by economists, politicians and especially business leaders with barely a mention of school education. Yet improving school outcomes is crucial to our global competitiveness.

Second, think about how to improve school outcomes. And that requires lifting the performance of all children.

As our best and brightest receive their prizes this week, the children recall memories of their best teachers. Yet few students get honourable mentions for trying hard or improving the most. Few teachers win plaudits for their unseen work in lifting the least responsive and literate child into a keen reader or player of maths puzzles.

The examples of great teaching success stories overseas are disparate. Hong Kong has revived its education performance by dumping be-all and end-all exams in favour of using assessments as a guide to teaching individual students. Singapore picks elite students to be teachers, trains them and assesses them continually. Finland gives teachers freedom to use their own research to customise education for students. The common link is that teaching is seen as an elite profession for skilled, passionate people.

Most Australian teachers are just that. All they want to ensure is better training so they can do an even better job, and a performance measurement system that delves beyond mere test results.

Third, think about whether teachers and schools have the resources to educate all Australian children to their potential. You do not hear much about the countless teachers, parents and children who toil away with few resources at school and home.

Of course the odd disadvantaged student beats the odds. Education should not be about chance. The key is equity.

The Gonski proposals strip away the school system a student attends and focuses, rightly, on funding for what a pupil needs to meet acceptable education standards. It has a base amount of funding for every school student, with loadings for disadvantaged students. Those in public schools would get the full amount, with pupils in independent and Catholic schools attracting a proportion based on the parents' ability to make up the rest.

Gonski is a once in a generation opportunity for Australia to improve educational performance by redressing educational disadvantage.

The Gonski reforms will be expensive. But paying for them is about choices.

A partisan stand-off over state-federal deficits versus an increase in the GST. An income tax cut versus spending on a better education system that bolsters economic growth. A continuing fight between government and independent schools versus a system-neutral model based on the educational needs of the child. A snickering belittling of the worthy work of teachers versus an investment in teacher training to reward those with the passion and skills to assess the potential in every child and help them achieve it. The choice is easy.